My Iraqi friend and the Obama betrayal

In Ramadi I met an Iraqi police lieutenant who was earnestly pro-American, and who kept talking about the need for “honest leadership” in the local police stations. The police lieutenant (I’ll call him Ismail, for his protection) was hopeful, if also wary. He mistrusted some of his fellow police and was afraid that al Qaeda might return if U.S. forces left too soon.

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He explained to me that the Anbar Awakening started in September 2006, when al Qaeda murdered two of Ramadi’s most important sheiks. Local tribes rebelled against al Qaeda and were soon joined by others. They took up arms alongside surging U.S. forces in early 2007 and together they eradicated al Qaeda from Anbar province.

By the end of 2008, the U.S. and its allies had done the hard work of building a political coalition of Iraqi parties committed to reconciliation and to a long-term alliance with the U.S. I lost touch with Ismail after that, and had every reason to believe he was well.

Then came President Obama, and the end of the fragile reconciliation process in Iraq.

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